drought

In the news...

The population of hungry people is rising across the world, a UN report has shown, with more than a quarter of them in Africa.
Out of the 821 million people who faced shortage of food in 2017, 257 million were found in the continent.
A new report on the State of Food …

Globally, one out of nine people suffers from chronic hunger, and undernourishment is growing. Global average surface temperatures are also rising and are projected to increase by 2° to 5°C this century, with negative impacts on agricultural production. Even today, despite substantial plant protection efforts, about one-third of crops are …

If climate change is the new normal, farmers in some regions of the world will have to get used to fighting mold and mildew. For wheat growers in particular, fungal blights are already a big problem—and only expected to worsen as weather patterns change. Fungal pathogens are advancing northwards at …

Two weeks ago, an international environmental watchdog and lobby group, Greenpeace Africa raised concerns over local governments’ failure to allocate adequate funding to the agriculture sector.
The lobby group therefore filed a petition stating that the county assembly formulates laws that support the ecological farming model since we have been practising …

BRECcIA is an ambitious programme that aims to develop research capacity in institutions in three sub-Saharan countries.
Climate variability is a key feature of dryland ecosystems across sub-Saharan Africa, where rain-fed agriculture and pastoralism characterises local subsistence and is the mainstay of national economies. Demand for water and food from growing …

University of California researchers are on the path to discovering genes that assist in drought resistance in sorghum, which could potentially be applied to other important cereal crops like corn, wheat, rice and barley in the years to come.
“We’re going to need crops that have better drought tolerance in the …

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and its Global Soil Partnership launched today a new programme to boost soil productivity and reduce soil degradation for greater food and nutrition security in Africa.
The Afrisoils programme aims to increase soil productivity in 47 African countries by 30 percent, and reduce …

The World Bank recently launched one of its largest climate smart agriculture initiatives in India. Through this $420 million initiative, the bank expects to reach over 25 million smallholder farmers working on 3.5 million hectares of land. The project will support climate-smart agricultural practices including crop diversification and planting of …

The calcineurin B-like protein (CBL)-interacting protein kinase (CIPK) signaling pathway responds to various abiotic stresses in plants. The research team of Xiao-Yu Cui and Yong-Tao Du from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences studied the CIPK23 gene from wheat (Triticum aestivum). Read more and for more detailed …

All rights reserved except for educational, research and non-commercial purposes when reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. This project was made possible through the support of grants from the Malaysian Commonwealth Studies Centre and the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Grantors.